After yesterday's rather fresh and rainy afternoon, the sun was back today to produce a picture perfect day in Cambridge at a marvelous racing temperature of 15 °C.

Sunglasses mounted, we paddled legs-only past Caius' boathouse and exchanged polite wishes of luck with their first IV+ crew: 4 rowers of their May's M1, who gained headship in the 2011 campaign (and blades in doing so). After they beat Downing in the first round of the Uni4 competition with a margin of 3sec, it was clear that this boat was the team to beat this year. Indeed, we now met in the final after they had beaten King's by 7sec, and we had sent home LMBC by 17sec in the semis.

The warm-up routine was promising, which was important with the challenge ahead. A burst down the reach was clean (even though our perfectionist cox Will opposed that opinion), and the first practice start left the people sitting outside the Plough visibly impressed. Peter did not even want to do a second practice start as we normally did!

The crew was calm and composed at the start. We set off well, with a minor upset for a stroke or two under the motorway bridge, then quickly lengthened to r34 as we came towards grassy. With Caius gaining on us perhaps a length, Will demanded bow side pressure and steered the Hudson around this bend on the perfect line. Jacob and Helge got us around the corner masterfully again. The original distance between the boats was restored as we continued the strong rhythm at r34 down the Plough reach.

Our Formula1-worthy cox crossed the river and showed an incredibly tight line around Ditton. The bow side blades touched the vegetation at the bank several times without upsetting the boat or rhythm, while Peter at 2 did not dare to pull at max. strength for a few strokes - that's how tight it was! A demonstration of strong nerves by everyone.

On the reach, the margin between the boats remained unchanged. We emptied our tanks and passed the finish line without knowing who'd won. The race felt good at all times, similar to the day before, but with the difference that we worked harder, were faster and, as a consequence, legs and lungs were hurting from the Plough onwards, unlike the days before. It was clearly the toughest race we had this week.

In a discussion between the marshals and the crews, it became clear that the boats were equally fast, so the decision leaned towards a dead heat as experienced several times in the past few years.

Bottom line: Queens’ once again showed the level of rowing is up to standards! Congratulations to this victory, and thank you to everyone involved who made this a fantastic experience!